


That you and he might touch

by singmyheart



Series: As in a sea [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Get Together, M/M, Phone Sex, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 13:14:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singmyheart/pseuds/singmyheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Physicist, occasional green rage monster, wanton sex god, Captain America enthusiast. Since you asked.”</p><p>“Mmmm. Should put that on a business card.”</p><p>(Or: poetry, jazz, dirty texts during meetings, and realizations.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	That you and he might touch

Steve doesn’t really understand his life. Okay, the whole supersoldier thing, the war, the seven-decade coma, the aliens and demigods? He’s got a pretty decent handle on that, now. But Bruce Banner? Bruce who likes to watch foreign-language films without subtitles and doesn’t talk to him like he’s delicate or will fly off the handle without warning, Bruce who likes to kiss him when he isn’t expecting it and recite poetry against his mouth – that part confuses him a little.

Sometimes they sit in the lab, together but wrapped up in their own things, Steve sketching, Bruce doing science with Tony – and he’ll glance up and Bruce will glance up and they won’t say anything, there’ll just be a look, at least until Tony starts bitching about them making eyes at each other and would they please take it elsewhere, his robots are young and impressionable. Sometimes they kiss randomly, for hours at a time, usually in the aftermath of a mission, stretched out lazy on Steve’s bed or Bruce’s stupid futon, without any expectations. Sometimes they go for coffee and read to each other in low voices across the table, attracting stares because they’re the Hulk and Captain America and not because anyone can see their knees touching. Sometimes during meetings with Director Fury Bruce will text him, usually a wry comment about the eye patch but occasionally things that make him cough and blush (Coulson will pass him a bottle of water without commenting, unflappable as ever; when Steve expresses mild but mostly pleased surprise at the specificity and detail of these missives Bruce just smiles, inscrutable) and more often poetry. Occasionally when Steve can’t sleep he goes to the kitchen and sketches or reads for a while, coffee going cold by his elbow as the sun comes up, asks Jarvis a little awkwardly and self-consciously to play some jazz, give him a break from the stuff Tony’s got blaring in the lab all the time. Once, with Judy Garland crooning low ( _“Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky…”_ ) he’d pulled a sleepy Bruce into his lap, let him doze against his shoulder for a while, until Bruce had gotten to his feet and gestured him to stand, and they’d slow-danced, alone and barefoot, in the gray light of early, early morning.

They’re not yet sleeping together, but Steve is pretty sure they’ll get there, pretty sure he wants to – and also pretty sure the way he’s caught Bruce watching him when they’re in the gym and Bruce is supposedly doing yoga means he’s not alone in thinking so.

“I’ll run,” Bruce warns him, once, doing dishes after dinner, casual as you please.

“Hmm?” Steve is attacking a particularly stubborn bit of mashed potato, not quite paying attention.

“I mean, not now, maybe not for a while. But, I just – “ He sighs. “Eventually. I’m not… Steve, I’m not _good_ for you. What you deserve, the things that you want, I can’t – “

“Don’t you think that’s up to me?” Steve interrupts, mildly. “What I deserve, I mean, what I want? Or, what you think I want?” He can see, out of the corner of his eye, Bruce staring at him. He shifts to look down at him, hands still working in the sink, wet up to his elbows and a damp spot on the front of his t-shirt, and says, steady, “ _A day is long and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station where the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep_.”

Bruce takes the back of his neck in both hands, pulls him down and kisses him hard. Heedless of the splash, Steve wraps his own hands around Bruce’s waist and reciprocates as best he can, bites at his lip and licks hungry into his open mouth until they’re both somehow soaking wet and his shoulder starts to protest the height difference.

“ _Where I may feel the throbs of your heart,”_ Bruce recites in a rush, breathless with his face pressed against Steve’s shoulder, “ _or rest upon your hip, carry me when you go forth over land or sea; for thus, merely touching you – “_

 _“Is enough, is best,”_ Steve finishes, drops a kiss on his forehead. “Not what I deserve,” he scoffs, smiling into his hairline, “what a joke.”

Later that night when Steve’s phone goes off, lights up with a text from Bruce, it makes him blush so deeply he’s glad he’s alone. He debates over what to text him back (because really, how do you put these things in writing, he has no idea how Bruce can _do_ this, can make him feel like this with so few words) and since today is apparently one for boldness, calls him instead. He’s got his sweats pushed down and a hand around his hardening cock when Bruce picks up.

“Hi,” he says, warm, surprised.

“Hi,” Steve answers; already finding it a little difficult to form sentences, strokes himself a couple of times and hopes Bruce doesn’t think the hitch in his breathing is due to a freak recurrence of his asthma or something.

He can hear Bruce swallow on the other end of the line. “Are you – “

“Yeah, I – yeah.” He lets his eyes close, forces himself to slow down, to make it last.

“ _Really,_ ” comes the reply, rich with amusement and something else, and oh god this was a bad idea, he’s not going to be able to look him in the eye tomorrow, he should just hang up, Rogers, you idiot, but then – “ _Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky…”_ There’s a pause, and then Bruce’s voice drops half an octave and his breathing is as laboured as Steve’s, and he had no idea he could feel like this, just based on what they’re doing, _god._ “ _Against the sky – like a patient etherized upon a table. Let us go through certain half-deserted –_ shit, _half-deserted streets, the muttering retreats of restless nights… in one-night cheap hotels, and sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells, streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent…_ Christ, Steve, you’re – “

“Don’t stop,” Steve breathes before he can censor himself, is rewarded with a laugh from Bruce that turns into a groan.

“ _To lead you to an overwhelming question – oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’ Let us go and – make our visit…_ fuck, Steve, I can’t – “

“Well, come on, then,” Steve manages around a moan, hopes it sounds playful instead of desperate like he feels, he’s _right there,_ “I’m – “ and then, with what feels like every muscle taut, shuddering with it, stars burst behind his eyes as he comes, and he can hear Bruce lose it too.

“Okay, so, definitely, _definitely_ sleeping well tonight,” Bruce’s voice cuts through the haze, and he laughs.

“Tell me about it. What even _are_ you,” Steve hums, already dozing, strips off his shirt and cleans up his mess before settling down in his pillows with the phone still pressed to his ear.

“Physicist, occasional green rage monster, wanton sex god, Captain America enthusiast. Since you asked.”

“Mmmm. Should put that on a business card.”

“First thing tomorrow,” Bruce assures him, and Steve is somewhat surprised to hear that his voice is kind of hoarse, and even more so that he likes it.

“’Kay. Hate to – um, whatever we just did – and run, but I’m fighting to keep my eyes open here…”

Bruce chuckles. “Night, Cap.” Neither of them hang up, and fall asleep with phones cradled in slack hands, breathing deep and even. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I Sing the Body Electric - Walt Whitman  
> Stormy Weather - Judy Garland  
> Don't Go Far Off - Pablo Neruda  
> Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand - Walt Whitman  
> the Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock - TS Eliot


End file.
